


The Scoobies Discover Nature

by OffYourBird



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Reality, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Light-Hearted, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-02-03 07:18:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12743619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OffYourBird/pseuds/OffYourBird
Summary: Our team of plucky Scoobies and their reluctant neighboring vampire have survived a lot on the Hellmouth. Will swarms of mosquitos, granola-stealing squirrels, and seriously uncooperative weather turn out to be their undoing? Or will some of them simply start undoing their clothes?(Set in the summer after S4)





	1. Part One - In Which There Are Mosquitos

**Author's Note:**

> If you're looking for a serious relationship arc and thoughtful character explorations just, uh.... back away slowly.
> 
> This story was inspired by my wilderness trip this summer, my muse's desire to be both absurd and smutty, and my apparent lack of ability to do anything I meant to do after returning to civilization. Case in point, this one-shot ended up a two-parter.
> 
> This is dedicated to the amazing sandy, who was responsible for starting this madness (I'm sorry).

“You spill anything in my car and I’ll find a nice big Pjobin demon to eat you lot.” Spike accompanied this statement with a black glare in the pre-dawn.

Xander slowly raised his free hand, the other clutching a puffy, rolled-up sleeping bag. “Is this before or after you burn out our eyes with your cigarette if we start singing?”

Spike smirked. “Wouldn’t be much fun  _after_  the big ol’ beastie gets to you, now would it?”

Buffy sighed in exasperation and shifted the gigantic backpack on her shoulders, wondering for the millionth time why she was doing anything that even remotely resembled camping. And with  _Spike_ , of all people. Oh, right. Summer on the Hellmouth equaled boredom and much pestering of the Giles-shaped person, who was at the end of his tightly wound British rope. So when Xander casually mentioned camping (as he had years of experience with a tent in his backyard avoiding the parental units), Giles had immediately jumped on board, even going so far as to fund and plan the whole thing, complete with renting two canoes and the hideous fashion statements someone was trying to sell as backpacks.

The only problem was that they sort of lacked transportation.

Enter the evil, bleached menace.

“Pipe down, Chips Ahoy,” Buffy said with a well-placed eye roll. “You’re just here for the wheels. And you owe me for not staking your bony butt for that stunt you pulled with Adam last month. So get in and  _drive_.”

Spike pursed his lips at her, glowering. He was, of course, dressed as he always was, despite the fact that doc martens and a long leather trench coat seemed like the worst idea ever for a wilderness trip. Whatever. “Fine, fine,” he muttered, heading toward the driver’s door. “But if your bloody canoes scratch the top of my baby, you’re paying for the detailing.”

Anya gave the car a long look over her absurdly gigantic sunglasses. “Who could tell on this old monstrosity?”

“Oi! Watch it, demon girl. This here’s a classic.”

Willow shrugged, shifting awkwardly in her sandals. The redhead had been put out at first when Tara wasn’t able to come due to her summer work schedule, but the promise of smores and cute animals had brightened her spirits. “I don’t know, I think I actually have to agree with Anya here. And with the grrr spooky blacked-in windows? Not exactly show-stoppery, is it?”

Spike huffed at her. “Well, excuse me for not giving Mister Sunshine the opportunity to turn me into a sodding dust heap every time I get behind the wheel.”

“Just saying,” Willow mumbled.

At this rate, they were seriously going to spend half the trip not getting in the stupid car. And it was hot out already. “Guys! We can totally pick on Spike for his terrible choice in cars later. Drive-y now.”

Spike gave her another glare, but wisely kept his mouth shut (which was a miracle in and of itself).

“Right,” Xander said, as he swung his pack into the trunk. “Off to the middle of nowhere with an evil vampire. What could go wrong?”

The answer, as it turned out, was lots. Lots could go wrong. And that was before they even got to their destination.

The first problem was realizing that their destination was thirteen hours away in some crazy isolated wilderness all the way up in Oregon (which Giles was so in trouble for). It wasn’t that they hadn’t known where they were going; it was just that, in practice, five people stuffed in Spike’s smelly old car for thirteen hours pretty much ensured that one of them was not making it out alive or undusty.

“I have to use the bathroom again.”

“Ahn, I told you chugging that iced coffee was a bad idea.”

“We’re not bloody stopping again!”

“I’ll just pee on your backseat then,” Anya proclaimed, which earned her a rousing chorus of “Eww, no!”

“You blood bags are right disgusting,” Spike muttered, pulling into the next rest stop.

Buffy, who had snagged the front passenger seat and now sat with her stake resting pointedly – hah! – on her lap (because it never hurt to remind Spike just who was in charge), gave the vampire a hard look. “Oh, puh-lease. You drink  _blood_. On the gross meter, you’re like one thousand up.”

“Matter of opinion, Slayer.”

Willow scrunched up her nose from the backseat as Anya made a dash for the bathroom. “I second the oozy blood grossness.”

“It’s not a sodding democracy, teen witch.”

Buffy smirked at him. “You’re right, it’s not, because you don’t get a vote.”

Spike sighed loudly, grumbling as Anya climbed back into the car, and pulled them onto the highway again. “Christ, someone stake me now.”

“Oh, don’t tempt me,” Buffy warned. “But, fortunately for you, we need you to chauffeur.”

“My bloody lucky day then, innit,” Spike muttered.

“Thems the kicks when you’re an evil, neutered vampire.”

“Just you wait, Slayer. One of these days…”

Buffy raised a brow. “You’ll what? Glare me to death?”

He glared at her.

 

***

 

They, shockingly, made it to Oregon in mostly full pieces (Xander did give himself a nasty paper cut on a fast food paper bag). The sun had recently set, which meant that nature – namely of the flying and bloodsucking kind – was out in full force.

Willow misted a heavy cloud of bug spray and then immediately bent over in a gigantic coughing fit. “Ugh, I totally should have learned a bug repellant spell for this.”

Buffy angrily swatted at her own bloodsucking groupies. “That would have been super, Wils.”

Spike just chuckled. “See now, these are my kind of blokes.” He lit a cigarette and watched a mosquito land on his arm with a kind of disgusting fondness. “Right vicious little tykes, aren’t you?”

Xander gaped at him. “You are… god, there aren’t even words.”

Spike grinned. “What, the great Xander Harris afraid of a bug?”

Xander scowled at him. “No, evil dead, I just love them. We’re best friends.” With a disdainful head shake, he turned and tugged at one of the canoes. “Buffy? Help, here?”

Buffy sighed and helped take down the canoes from the Desoto’s roof. It was going to be an absurdly long four days. Four days where Giles was probably sitting back with an umbrella in his drink and celebrating his old person cleverness. She was so going to bottle some of the stupid mosquitos to bring back to him as a ‘thank you’ gift.

They portaged to the shoreline, with the two supernaturally strong beings lugging the canoes over their heads while the others struggled through the half mile muddy path with their packs.

“Buck up, kiddies,” Spike crowed as he trotted along with his canoe, chortling when Xander skidded into a gigantic mud puddle, “it’s gonna be a wild ride.”

“I find this to be incredibly unpleasant,” Anya remarked, as they arrived at the lake shore, the three Scoobies panting, grumpy, and muddy. “Why in the world do people subject themselves to this kind of torture?”

Buffy shrugged, setting down her canoe with ease. “Honestly, this is a piece of cake compared to a patrol night.” The lingering smell of sweat rose to her nose and she frowned. “Except I’m totally going to miss the whole bathing afterward thing.”

“ _You’ll_ miss it?” Spike exclaimed. “I’m the one with the good nose here. You all are going to reek and yours truly is going to suffer for it.”

“Well, at least one good thing will come of this trip then,” Buffy offered with a perky grin.

That earned her yet another glare.

They finally ended up in the water, after much tussling about who was going in which boat. Xander refused to be in the same canoe with Spike, Anya went wherever Xander did, and Willow was still incredibly uneasy sitting too near their resident vampire. Which meant that Buffy and Spike ended up in a single canoe, alone. Predictably, Spike flat out refused to paddle. Instead, he simply sat straight at attention in the front of the canoe and made a massive nuisance of himself, pointing out all the creepy-crawlies and waxing poetic about horror stories of people getting murdered out on the lake. Buffy gritted her teeth and paddled faster.

Finally, Xander’s voice rang out from somewhere behind them, sounding labored and uneven. “Uh, Buffy, you’re supernaturally strong, remember?”

“Even hauling dead weight around,” Anya added.

“Horribly talky dead weight,” Willow amended.

“Oi!”

Buffy sighed and slowed her paddling. “Sorry.”

“Did I tell you about the rabid bear who took out a whole campsite?” Spike asked loudly. When only silence met him, he smirked visibly in the dark, the light of the moon reflecting up from the waving water. “Well then, there was this right nasty bear…”

 

***

 

Somehow, they survived the first two days of canoeing and camping. Spike was convinced that he was going to turn straight to dust on the water during the day, and sat miserably huddled under a gigantic umbrella, his duster hunched protectively around him.

“This is cruel and unusual punishment, Slayer,” he managed to say about every hour.

“And yet it’s still better than what you deserve,” Buffy cheerfully informed him, humming happily as she paddled.

After that, he usually mumbled some kind of combination of ‘drain you dry’ and ‘if I didn’t have this sodding chip’ and ‘think you’re so bloody clever’.

Still, when they stopped to swim at mid-afternoon on the second day, the tingling on the back of her neck told her that Spike’s gaze was glued to her barely-clothed body and, most disturbingly, she found herself enjoying the attention. The sun must’ve gone to her head.  _Well, if I’m going insane, I might as well embrace it_ , she reasoned, in a voice that was way too cheerful for Hellmouth!Buffy. She was at the moment, she decided, nature!Buffy. And nature!Buffy was carefree and saucy and bold. So she wiggled her ass a little and dove deep into the water and pretended someone not dead and evil was the one watching her display… Which only confirmed her 'brain with the too much sun-age' theory.

That and she hadn’t seen Riley in a month. In fact, she wasn’t really sure there still was a Riley to see. Well, not in the boyfriend sense. He’d gone to D.C. to get debriefed and potentially reassigned, now that he was no longer a wanted man. And they’d kind of skipped the whole ‘if he was coming back’ part of the goodbye discussion. She hadn’t wanted to ask, as the asking always seemed to create the exact circumstance she was looking to avoid. The getting left circumstance, to be exact. Still, even without the dreaded asking, there’d been no “see you in a month, Buffy” type message. It was all “good-bye” and “take care of yourself, okay?”.

Buffy Summers was striking out again. Wasn’t there something about three strikes and being out? If so, she was so out of the game. Dating game, boy game, love game. Blech.

Buffy frowned. Those thoughts were way too much with the grim for a sunny, blisteringly hot day on the lake, where she was very much in a bikini and being ogled by a vampire who wasn’t exactly unfortunate looking, even if she did hate every iota of him, all the way to the tips of his incredibly fake blond hair. So she embraced nature!Buffy and splished and splashed and showed off until pruniness threatened. Because that was the way better option, between everything.

In general, the crew had been roughing it with almost unexpected ease, even if Willow was wearing so much sunscreen that she was having a serious ghost flashback and Anya was jumping at every shadow since she saw a rabbit in the underbrush on their first day (she was almost stoically putting up with the chipmunks, but had a very low opinion of them).

When they set up camp that night, a cool, high wind was blowing in, making starting a fire nearly impossible by conventional means. Eventually, Willow muttered a quick spell and flames burst from the fire grate, nearly taking off Xander’s eyebrows and setting the edges of Spike’s duster ablaze.

“Oi, have a care, firestarter! Kind of flammable here!”

Willow flushed. “Sorry. Haven’t used that spell before.”

“Right obvious, that was,” Spike growled, cautiously patting out the last bits of smoldering leather and grumpily collapsing onto one of the stumps that passed for chairs.

“Willow’s a fantastic witch,” Buffy snapped, pausing in her fervent task of stabbing marshmallows on a stick for smores. The action came off more viciously than she intended, which mostly resulted in a very broken stick. Ugh. What she wouldn’t give for a fledgling or two to take the edge off.

Spike raised a brow in her direction. “Is she now? Seem to recall you and I almost got hitched because of Red here not so long ago.”

Buffy snapped her replacement stick into three pieces. Crap. Luckily, Xander saved her from replying (which was much of the good for William the Bloody, because she was pretty sure a broken stick through the heart was way easier to manage than any kind of reply to that particular memory).

“Wil’s spell worked just fine,” Xander said sharply, patting Willow’s arm supportively as the redhead winced. “It just… she just didn’t know what it was doing at the time.”

Spike snorted and drew out a flask from one of his duster pockets. “Righhht. And that’s just the measure of a solid magic-doer, eh? Negligence and ignorance.”

Buffy very resolutely found a third stick to host her marshmallows. “Shut up, Spike.”

They passed most of the rest of the evening in silence, with Spike rolling his eyes at a heated discussion over the perfect marshmallow to chocolate ratio for smores. Although it didn’t, Buffy noted, stop him from making his own smore and declaring it leagues above their ‘sad mortal attempts’. Buffy ended up stealing the last half of his smore, viciously shoving it in her mouth, to Spike’s vehement protests. Damn. It  _was_  really good.

Eventually, Anya whispered something in Xander’s ear that made him choke on a piece of graham cracker, quickly followed by a stammering excuse that he was tired and it was past his bedtime. Anya shrugged and followed him a moment later, announcing, “We’re off to have many orgasms in the middle of nature.”

Willow gagged slightly. “Does she lack the part of her brain makes all the discreetness happen?”

Spike chuckled. “Think it’s right refreshing, m’self.” He paused with a grimace. “Even if the idea of the two of them bumping uglies makes me want to heave.”

Willow nodded violently. “Totally on board with you there.”

A moment later, there was a faint yelp from the direction of Xander’s tent, followed by a high-pitched, “Who put the swarm of mosquitos in my tent?!”

All eyes flew to Spike, who simply smirked and took a long pull of whisky. “What? The boy said he loved bloodsuckers.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “You have the maturity of a five-year-old.”

“Nah, just evil.”

“I rest my case.”

“Oh, you think you’re so bloody funny, Summers.”

Buffy smirked at him. “Correction. I know I am.”

Spike huffed and took another swig of whisky.

Preening at her victory, Buffy headed off to her own tent. As she settled in for the night, an unseen root poked her viciously in the back. She gave a small growl and wiggled around to find a more comfortable spot, which didn’t end up revealing itself. It was all dirt and roots, no matter which way you shook it. Ugh. It was confirmed. Buffy Anne Summers was not the camping kind. She had spent enough of her likely very short life getting battered and bruised and dirty in the name of her Calling. Who in the world decided doing it for fun should be a thing?

Stupid pokey roots aside, sleep wasn’t coming easily that night, as the high wind had picked up into a howl. There was a loud rustling outside, followed by familiar and annoying tingles on the back of her neck. Spike hadn’t packed a tent, or any kind of sleeping item, for that matter, as he seemed to prefer doing whatever in the heck a camping vampire might do in the middle of the night.

Namely, she figured out, it included hunting squirrels. They’d packed Spike plenty of blood, but he seemed to take a perverse enjoyment in stalking the tiny creatures. Although, Buffy noticed, he hid the corpses out of sight (she’d found the small pile that morning when she’d gotten lost on the way to the latrine). It was probably a wise move, all told. Dead furry creatures were bound to make a certain redheaded witch rather cranky. Oddly, Buffy found she didn’t really mind, particularly since a stupid squirrel had stolen her granola right out from under her nose that very same morning. If she saw Mr. Thieving Furrytail again, she was so pointing him out to the bloodthirsty vampire in residence.

The howling wind turned rather ominously whipping, and the vampire tingles grew more alarming, followed by a very disgruntled, “Let me in, Slayer.”

Buffy sat straight up with whiplash speed. “ _What!_  Why in the heck would I do that?”

“Because, miss oblivious, in case you hadn’t noticed, Mother Nature’s getting her knickers in a twist.”

“Huh?”

There was a heavy sigh. “’Bout to storm summat fierce. Don’t exactly feature standing out in it.”

“Oh.” Buffy bit her lip, glancing around her darkened tent. “Well, why don’t you go bother Willow? My tent is a one-woman situation.”

She could practically hear his leer. “Don’t intend on adding another woman, pet.” There was a slight pause. “And we both know Red’s digs are the same, yeah? ‘Sides the fact that we also know she’s not about to let me in.”

“And you think I am?”

She got a growl this time, punctuated by the sound of distant thunder. “Oh, c’mon, Slayer!”

Buffy settled back down in her sleeping bag, her racing heart settling. “Nope. Go annoy the others. Maybe Xander and Anya will take pity on you.”

“Know you can’t see it, but I’m bloody well glaring at you.”

She stifled a smile. “Go away, Spike.”

There was another growl, followed by the stomp of retreating boots. Buffy had almost made it to the brink of sleep when Spike’s presence again prickled up her spine.

“What do you want now?”

The vampire's voice was much softer now, or maybe the wind had just gotten louder. “Let me in.”

“Nope.”

“Let me in, Slayer!”

“Not happening.”

There was a short silence, followed by a sudden burst of raucous vampire-y singing (Spike could sing?):

 _If all of the girls were bells in a tower_  
_And I was a clapper, I'd bang one each hour!_

_So, go roll your leg over, roll your leg over  
Roll your leg over the man in the moon. _

_If all of the girls were fish in the ocean  
And I was a wave (or whale) I would teach them the motion. _

_So, go roll your leg over, roll your leg over  
Roll your leg over the man in the moon. _

_I wish all of the girls were fish in a pool  
And I was a whale with a waterproof tool–_

Buffy felt her entire face burn. “Oh my god,  _stop that_!”

The singing paused with a low chuckle. “Only if you let me in.”

She gritted her teeth. Why, oh why, was this her life? “ _Fine_.”

The tent was being unzipped nearly before she’d finished getting the end of the word out, and Spike flung himself inside, landing halfway on top of her sleeping bag. She was about to shove him off whilst giving him a severe chewing out, when a sudden deluge of rain hammered down on the tent.

“Just in time,” the vampire said with smug satisfaction, pulling himself away from his dangerous position nearly across her lap and instead sprawling next to her, elbows a hairsbreadth from hers as he folded his arms behind his head.

“I have a stake handy,” Buffy said warningly, shoving herself as far against the opposite tent wall as possible. He was too close in the dark, the vampiric sense of him thoroughly buzzing, and all the thick scent of him – alcohol and tobacco and pine – invading her nostrils in a way that it was absolutely not allowed to do. She suddenly wished she was wearing far more than her skimpy braless tank top and shorts underneath her sleeping bag.

Spike’s delighted laughter floated through the dark. “Know you do, Buffy.”

She scowled at him, a twinge of something unfamiliar and also completely not okay pulling at her chest with the easy way he said her name. “Is that funny somehow?” Gah. Her voice definitely did not tremble just then.

She felt him angle himself toward her face, and the flash of his blue eyes met hers in the dark. “Just wouldn’t expect anything less of you.” There was a pause. A hesitation, maybe. “You’re a dangerous woman. Brilliant fighter. Not about to let a Big Bad catch you off guard.”

Buffy wasn’t entirely sure what to say to that. He  _had_ caught her off guard. He wasn’t supposed to be nice and reasonable and rumbling in that damn deep voice of his. He was supposed to continue being an immature ass that she could happily throw back into the rain, potentially as a nice pile of dust. She wasn’t supposed to remember that the last time she’d been this close to him without fighting, they had been in love. Fake love. Absolutely one hundred percent fake love. “Right,” she managed.

A sudden bolt of lightning lit up the sky, followed by a hideous crack of thunder that was so loud she swore it shook the tent. She lay still as a statue, her heart pounding in her ears, realizing that she’d never really been in a true thunderstorm before. And never with only the tiniest bit of fabric separating her from the outside. Rain battered against the tent.

“Bit of water’s not gonna hurt you,” Spike drawled.

“I’m well aware,” she snapped, crossing her arms against her chest. A big gust of wind shifted the trees around her and she suddenly wished very hard that Anya hadn’t so matter-of-factly pointed out that over a hundred people were killed by falling trees every year. This seemed like a situation much with the bad for tree falling-ness.

“Buffy?”

“What!”

Spike’s cool fingers touched her arm and she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Safe as houses here.”

Buffy took a deep breath, tugging her arm away from his touch. “What is  _with_  you!”

She saw him arch a brow. “Think you might need to be asking yourself that, Slayer.”

“I’m  _fine_.”

He snorted. “Bloody queen of denial is what you are.”

Another round of lightning and thunder shook the sky and Buffy felt herself tremble. “Fine,” she repeated, almost so quietly that she could barely hear herself. “I hate this, okay? I hate the rain and the noise and the fact that I’m stuck out in the middle of nowhere and I feel…” her throat tightened.

“Powerless?”

She glanced over at him, shivering at the very serious tone of his voice. Powerless. Yeah. Exactly.  _Oh_. God, was this what he felt like all the time? “Um. Yeah.”

A long silence followed her answer, one that Buffy couldn’t believe wasn’t punctuated by some smart-ass remark or dig on her fortitude. Finally, Spike cleared his throat. “Way I see it, we have two options.”

“Huh?”

“We can both lay here and fret alone…”

She blinked.  _Both?_  Did that mean Big Bad Spike was also not a fan of thunderstorms? “Or?”

“Or we can have ourselves a nice cuddle and ignore the bloody awful show outside.”

She thought her heart might have stuttered. “I’m sorry, did you just say  _cuddle_?”

Spike growled slightly. “You know what, forget it, Slayer. Shouldn’t have said a sodding word.” Embarrassment colored his voice.

They lay without speaking for several minutes, until another round of ‘tear Buffy’s nerves to pieces’ lightning and thunder shook the sky. Crap. She turned so she was facing the silent vampire. “You tell anyone about this, and you’ll be dust before you can blink.”

He exhaled loudly, the shadow of a very familiar smirk lighting his face. “Not a word.”

“Or motion.”

“Crude or otherwise,” he affirmed. “Now c’mere.” He held out his arms to her, inching a bit closer.

It was then that she realized she was going to have to either get out of her sleeping bag or unzip it and let him in. The thought nearly made her change her mind entirely. But the storm wasn’t letting up. She kicked free of her sleeping bag and very reluctantly shifted closer to the waiting vampire.

He pulled her tightly against him, his cool arms wrapped around hers. He must’ve shed his duster without her noticing, and the feel of his bare arms around her waist was so intimate it almost sent her into a panic. Especially because it felt absurdly good against the sticky heat of the tent air.  _Oh, screw it_ , she thought finally.  _If I’m going to get splattered out in this stupid middle of nowhere by a dumb tree, I might as well be comfortable when it happens_. She tucked herself into Spike’s arms, her head pressed against his collarbone and her arms tight against his chest. He grunted in surprise, but simply held her more tightly in return and rolled them slightly so that his back was the one exposed to sudden cases of falling wood.

To her great amazement, she suddenly felt safer than she’d felt in years. Maybe ever. She fell asleep almost immediately, the rain pounding against the tent to the rhythm of Spike’s unnecessarily steady breath.

When Buffy woke in the morning, she was alone. Perhaps most disturbingly, her first instinct was to panic, thinking some ray of creeping sun had shined in and turned the vampire to dust in her arms. When there was no apparent dustiness inside the tent, she stumbled outside and looked frantically around the incredibly moist campsite. Her eyes met Spike’s as he sat safely under the shade of a thick maple tree, smoking casually.

“You always this clumsy in the morning, Slayer? Look like some dozy cow,” he said lazily, brow arched. “Should’a taken advantage of that before. Great shame, that is.”

Furious offense rose up in her throat before she saw the shockingly soft smile flickering on the edge of his lips. “You wish,” she retorted, without any real bite. “I could have kicked your ass any time of day or night. Pretty sure I did, actually.”

“You tell him, Buffster,” Xander said with sleepy enthusiasm, as he also roused from his tent. He blinked around the campsite, where various tree limbs and puddles ranged. “Some storm last night, huh?”

“Yeah,” Buffy said, definitely _not_  sneaking a glance back at the bleach blond vampire. “Some storm.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. the storm was real. My husband did exactly what Spike did here and covered me, and I felt about a million times better about life.
> 
> Fun fact: if the storms are bad enough, you're supposed to get out of your tent and stand on shore in the pouring rain so you don't die if a tree falls on your tent. Apparently our guide/friend was about two seconds from making us all stand in the rain when the wind settled.


	2. Part Two - In Which There Are Bears

Buffy didn’t mean to break the tent. Really, she didn’t.

But he was just sitting there in front of her in the canoe. All day. With his leather and his sitting and  _why the hell had he cuddled her_  and why had she let him and why had she felt so safe and _why_  was she still thinking about it?

The third day of their camping trip was incredibly long. Monumentally long. The longest day in the history of long.

It was hell. And she was there paddling the devil across the lake in a canoe. A devil who had a ridiculously nice looking backside. And did his hair always curl at the nape of his neck like that?

He had a thrall. That was it. Or some kind of weird pheromones.

When they stopped for lunch, she glared at him as he hunched underneath his umbrella. “I hate you.”

Spike arched an eyebrow at her, his stupidly blue eyes searching her face with slight confusion then sparkling mirth. “Feeling’s mutual, pet.”

The weather had remained drizzly all day, which meant Buffy was damp, grumpy, and entirely too horny for her own good when they finally stopped to make camp that night. And she didn’t even want to consider how in the hell cuddling with an evil vampire had managed to cause the last to happen. She did sort of hope he’d make the first two better; that was, wetter and less with the grumps.

Wow. Nature!Buffy was a shameless, slutty ho-bag.

When they had the tents set up and the canoes turned over, Xander slumped against a tree, raising a weary hand. “I hereby vote that the Scoobies stick to demons in the future. Nature is too full of nature for me.”

“Demons are much more reasonable,” Anya agreed, squinting up at the slowly weeping and darkening sky.

“Civilization all the way for this girl,” Willow added miserably, her oversized yellow poncho covering almost every inch of her.

Buffy winced. “We all do realize we’re actually saying we miss the Hellmouth?”

She received three vigorous nods.

Spike, who was (unsuccessfully) trying to light a wet cigarette, sighed. “Have to agree with the kiddies,” he muttered, tossing away the useless cigarette.

Willow tsked at him and picked up the butt, pointedly throwing it in their garbage bag. “Litterbug,” she accused.

He smirked at her. “Evil.”

“That’s it,” Xander declared, watching the exchange, “the evil dead just agreed with us about nature. It is officially time to get the heck out of dodge.”

“First thing in the morning,” Buffy agreed. She frowned at the rain. “Think we can bring this crud to California and park it outside Giles’s apartment?”

Willow giggled. “I can try.”

“Super.”

They all parted ways shortly after, choosing dinners of cheese and crackers in their tents over any further time in the grossness. Buffy definitely did  _not_ leave the tent flap slightly open when she climbed inside. And she absolutely did  _not_  tell Spike to “Get in here” when he showed up outside a little while later.

He grinned as he slipped inside and shrugged off his wet duster, watching her stuff her face with a rather obscenely large chunk of cheese. “Knew you couldn’t resist a bit more cud–”

The crackers went flying as Buffy pounced on the unwitting vampire, to his startled yelp, straddling him firmly against the ground. She felt his sudden arousal bob against her and rolled her eyes.

“God, you  _would_  get off on getting attacked.”

He gaped at her. “Well, first of all,” he sputtered, “ _vampire_. Second, violent personality that kind of goes along with the whole  _being a vampire_  thing. And third, you’re sodding  _straddling_  me!”

Buffy crossed her arms over her tank top and huffed, slowly rocking herself against his erection. “I really do hate you, you know that?”

Spike made a small gurgling noise in his throat. “To be honest, think I’m getting some mixed messages here.”

She shifted her hips slightly so that his bulge was brushing her clit. They both whimpered. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

Spike swallowed heavily, eyes wide and wild. “Slayer, if you’re itching for a reason to stake me, I’d much prefer you let me give you a real reason instead of just making my mouth do me in.”

She paused in her rocking. “Huh?”

Spike thrust up violently against her. “A  _real_  reason,” he growled. His eyes flashed amber and his hands came up to grasp her hips. Hard.

Relief filtered through her. Oh thank god. She wasn’t the only one with a sudden, terrible desire to screw her ex-mortal enemy. At least he was as messed in the head as she was. What in the hell was in this wilderness air? Lust drugs? Funny farm pills?

She suddenly didn’t care. Nature!Buffy was a big, unrepentant, saucy ho, after all.

When she didn’t move to stake him for his suggestion, Spike held her even tighter, rocking with her, and started rambling. “I always got hot fighting you. Being around you. Tight little body of yours… and those bloody short skirts you used to wear… Enough to drive a bloke up the wall. Right over the wall, matter of fact. Fuck, Buffy.”

She sucked in a sharp breath, everything in her suddenly trembling. “Spike.”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

He scoffed, eyes narrowing. “You're the one who sodding start–”

She cut him off with her lips. They ended up chest against chest, her hands wrapping themselves around his neck like a noose. Spike stiffened immediately (instinctively, she guessed) then groaned and smashed his lips back against hers, so cool and blistering and _talented_ and somehow even better than she remembered. That had been the worst part, at the end of Willow’s spell. That she’d been all crazy lip locked with a creature she thought she despised and yet still desperately wanted to keep kissing. That they’d both continued the charade for several moments after obviously coming back to themselves was something neither of them had ever made mention of.

Buffy tore her lips away, panting harshly. “You tell anyone about this…”

Spike eyed her mouth hungrily, gaze dark and turbulent. “Yeah, yeah. Dusty end. Got the message.” He tugged her back against him and rolled them suddenly so that her back was pressed against the ground. He slid a hand between them, his palm pressing against her clit through her shorts and rubbing in the ways that an evil old vampire just  _would_  know how to rub her. She arched her back with a low cry, gasping, her hands coming up to tug furiously at Spike’s shirt until he ripped it off. Oh. Whoa. Spike was  _built_ , all lean and muscly, like some kind of racehorse. She’d sort of known he was, from all the times she’d guiltily ogled his figure and from all the times she’d experienced those muscles fighting him and then holding him under the spell. But she hadn’t  _really_  known. She quickly closed her mouth when she realized it had been hanging open.

He grinned at her, running a hand down his unfairly sexy chest. “Like what you see?”

“Shut up.”

He chuckled. “Need a new tune there, luv.”

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “I have lots of tunes. They’re sharp and pointy and made of wood. Wanna see?”

His grin widened as he leaned down to her. “So feisty, Slayer.”

“Like you mind,” she snapped, although it didn’t come out snappy at all.

Spike snaked his tongue behind his teeth. “Never said I did.”

“And yet you keep pressing your luck.”

“Never said I wouldn’t,” he retorted, leaning down to worry her nipples through her thin tank top with blunt teeth.

Buffy whimpered despite herself, finding herself entirely unwilling to protest when Spike tugged up her shirt and flung it over her head. (Oh, who was she kidding? She helped him.)

“Christ, you’re bloody delicious looking.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Wow, way to kill the moment by being a vampire.”

Spike snorted, sending both hands to cup her breasts and making her gasp. “Wasn’t saying it as a vampire, pet.”

“N–no?”

He trailed a long line of cool kisses down her collarbone that somehow managed to set her ablaze. “No.”

No one had made her feel this way before, like some wanton goddess. Not even Riley during their magically induced sexcapades in the frat house. She’d been lost to the motion of sex, pushed by a strange, driving need that demanded she keep moving and being thrust into and tangled with her boyfriend’s naked body. Now she simply found no reason to stop, even though there were absolutely many of them… somewhere.

“You’re evil.” It was the only explanation.

“You say the sweetest things, Slayer.” Winking, Spike tugged her shorts down, brushing her panties to the side to thrust his index finger into her pussy. They moaned in tandem as a second finger entered her. “God, Buffy, you’re so wet. For me?”

“Uh… huh.” She arched back onto her sleeping bag, eyes fluttering shut as Spike’s fingers thrust into her and rain pattered softly down onto the tent.

She felt him kick off his jeans, and a moment later his hardened cock brushed against her thigh, even as his lips nibbled at her ear. “Want you,” he rasped, sliding her panties down her legs.

That’d been them for years. Want you dead. Want you gone. Want you to help save the world. Want you to shut up. Want to marry you. Want to fuck you.

Oh, the ‘want to fuck you’ was definitely in full swing at the moment, even though saying that aloud would have never happened in a million years. The word  _fuck_  was guaranteed to turn her crimson, even after having done the act, um, a lot. But never like this. Never with Spike.

 _Never say never, I guess._  Buffy snapped her eyes open and wrapped her legs around Spike’s waist. With a firm grunt, she flipped them so that he was on the bottom again.

“Want you right there,” she told him flatly.

He groaned as she grabbed his cock with a firm hand. “Wherever you want me,” he agreed breathlessly, wide-eyed. He looked as shell-shocked as she felt, now that they were both naked to the world (err, woods). But neither of them was doing a thing about it. Well, nothing that required them getting dressed again, anyway. “Wherever you want me,” Spike repeated, more firmly, as if daring her. Or himself.

She liked the sound of that. None of the other men in her life had said that. None of them had just handed over the power to her with such ease. And those men had loved her. Why was the one who had traditionally hated her the one who put the most trust in her?

She stroked Spike’s cock with a long, slow motion, feeling drunk on the power. “Why do you trust me?”

His breath hissed out between his teeth. “Because you’re Buffy,” he managed, as if it was completely obvious. Not because she was the Slayer. Because she was Buffy.

That was when they broke the tent.

Okay, not right then. But a few moments later, when she sank down onto his cock and rode him with all the terrible neediness nature!Buffy could muster. Which apparently included snapping one of the main tent supports right in half. She squeaked as the tent collapsed on top of them, but Spike simply ripped a hole in the mess and lifted her up and out, nudging her to wrap her legs around his waist. He continued thrusting into her without pause. She had to give him major props for that part.

Buffy held tightly around his neck as he pivoted them into the darkened and rainy night, slamming her back against a nearby pine tree. They both cried out as he sank even deeper into her. They were panting and clawing at one another like wild animals, rough kisses painting them with bruises and blood, and her heels dug so sharply into his back that she had to be leaving marks, and his fingers tweaking her nipples so hard that she trembled and orgasmed violently enough to make her lightheaded, her pussy clenching and pulsing like it had a life of its own.

“Fuck!” Spike gasped, pausing to stare at her. “Do that again.”

“Make me.”

He did.

Buffy was on her third orgasm (and working up a serious butt burn from the tree bark), when Xander’s voice rang out into the night. “Uh… Buffy? Is everything okay out there?”

They froze.

“Uh…” Think, Buffy. Think! “Just wrestling a bear! Yep, that’s it! A bear! S-s-stay in your tent!” She squeaked as Spike laughed against her throat, nibbling on it with blunt teeth. “Stop that,” she hissed.

There was a pregnant pause, followed by some furious whispering. “Um… do you need any help?” Xander’s voice didn’t sound excited. It was still raining, after all, she realized. She’d sort of stopped noticing the weather.

“I can help, too,” Willow’s voice popped up suddenly, nearly making the lovers jump in surprise. “Give you a witchy boost?” She sounded equally unexcited.

“Uhm…”

Spike roared, nearly taking out her eardrum. It sounded surprisingly like a bear. Or would, if she could really remember what a bear roaring sounded like. Spike’s fingers drifted down to her clit and started furiously rubbing. Screw it. It was close enough.

“You know, guys, I’m kind of in need of some exercise, s-so,” Spike stuck his tongue in her ear and she whimpered, “I’ve totally got this.”

“If you’re sure,” Willow said anxiously.

Spike thrust into her hard, sending her breathlessly against the tree. “I’m – oomph – sure!”

“Good,” Anya said solidly. “Because it’s horrible out.”

“Right. Horrible,” Buffy muttered, mewling quietly as Spike kissed down her neck and to her collarbone.

“Grr,” he said with a low chuckle, “bloody bear’s gonna eat you right up.”

She gave him an arch look. “Oh, you wish, fang boy.”

She pushed her elbows against the tree for leverage and then thrust herself violently forward. Spike fell backwards with a startled yelp that he quickly tried to turn into a bear-ish growl as she sank onto him, his ass in a mud puddle. The dirty water splashed up on them both, coating Buffy’s legs and stomach with grit. They were going to be absolute disasters in the morning. And she had never cared less. Apparently nature!Buffy wasn’t big on personal hygiene. That was probably for the best.

Her last giggling thought before another orgasm rendered her mostly incoherent was that Giles would be incredibly appalled to know that his funded vacation had ended up with his Slayer boinking another vampire.

 

***

 

Buffy woke with her sleeping bag draped around her and her broken tent poking her in the back, where she vaguely remembered Spike nestling her. She could have sworn he also kissed her softly on the temple before he left, given along with a whispered goodnight.

Unlike the morning before, she didn’t bolt directly up. In fact, if she didn’t want to show a naked upper half to the world, it was really in her best interests not to. Still, she twisted underneath her makeshift blanket, looking around blearily until her eyes found Spike. The vampire was again fully dressed and apparently freshly bathed, smoking beneath a maple tree as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He caught her gaze immediately and smiled, a kind of shy yet smug expression that made her want to simultaneously roll her eyes and screw him into tomorrow.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Willow stumbled out of her tent a second later. “Holy moly! That bear really did a number!”

Huh? Oh. Buffy flushed. They might’ve knocked over some small stumps the night before. And done in the fire pit. And sort of made a giant rut on the ground over to one side.

Spike looked over at the witch with absurd calm. “Yeah, right nasty bear it was. Warned you about them man-eaters, didn’t I? Good thing your Slayer was here to take on the beast.”

Buffy really wasn’t sure how he managed to say that with a straight face. As it was, she felt like her mouth was going to split in two from the strain of keeping it from exuding nervous giggles. She promptly stood to avoid Willow’s bemused gaze, firmly holding the sleeping bag wrapped around her. And then she walked straight into the lake. Spike’s gaze was a hard tug on the back of her neck as she let the bag drop at the shore’s edge and firmly scrubbed every inch of her body in the cool lake water.

When she came back to shore, wrapped again in the now dripping sleeping bag, Anya was watching her with a raised brow. (Willow, apparently, had left. Probably to pack.) “Is this some strange human ritual I’m not aware of?”

“Nope! This is a Buffy special,” Buffy managed perkily, shivering slightly. “All of that bear wrestling… got dirty.”

She heard Spike cover up a snort of laughter with a very fake cough. Good thing his bear growl imitation had been better. She hoped.

Anya looked like she was about give her the third degree (crap), when a high-pitched squeal erupted, followed by an ashen-faced Xander, who pointed a shaking and furious finger in Spike’s direction. “You’re sick! Evil and sick and… and yueck!”

Spike just grinned widely around his cigarette, and Xander turned to Anya, sputtering. “ _Didn’t you see?!”_

Anya shrugged. “Of course. I thought it was a very nice gift.”

Xander gaped at her. “ _Gift?!_ ”

Anya nodded and turned to Spike. “Thank you for the present, by the way, Spike. It was very thoughtful.”

Spike was full-out chortling now. “Anytime, pet.”

Buffy just stared between them. “What with the huh?”

Xander turned to her, incredibly red in the face. “Squirrels,” he managed almost gaspingly. “He left  _dead squirrels_ outside our tent!”

“They are obnoxious little thieves,” Anya said, looking confused. “Spike did us a fine service. It was very nice of him to leave the proof of his efforts for us.”

“He left us a  _graveyard_!”

“Very homey,” Anya agreed.

Spike laughed so hard, the cigarette fell out of his mouth.

Buffy threw the vampire a hard look and strode over to where only he could hear her, unable to help the shiver of want that enveloped her at his close presence. Wow, nature!Buffy was an  _insatiable_  ho. “I only have one question.”

The hardness of her voice made Spike pause in his laughter. To the casual onlooker, he looked cool as a cucumber, but his blue eyes were dark and worried. “Yeah?”

“Did you do that before or after the bear attack?”

His expression relaxed, and he smirked. “After.”

Buffy released her breath and whirled back to Xander with a shrug. “Anya’s right. Those squirrels are complete jerks. I wanted my granola, darnit!” Then she headed back to her collapsed tent to grab her probably now semi-soaked change of clothes, leaving a dumbfounded Xander behind her.

Buffy stopped just before she got into her tent, turning to give the delighted vampire a severe look. “Just clean it up before Willow sees. Or she’ll curse you for sure.”

Spike winked at her. “Can’t have that.”

Xander huffed. “Sounds like a great idea to me!”

“I miss giving a good curse,” Anya said wistfully.

 

***

 

It was sort of a miracle they made it back to Spike’s car. Mostly because Buffy had to fight the urge to throw away her paddle every two seconds and find out exactly how difficult sex in a canoe might be. Of course, one of them would have had to hold up the umbrella for Spike at the same time, but she was pretty sure they could have managed it. By the time they reached the beach to portage back to the parking lot, her brain had determined at least five different positions that totally would have worked. Every once a while, Spike turned to her with a knowing look, tapping his nose. Eww.

Except not, because she totally wanted to jump him.

In the end, she managed to refrain, if for no other reason than she would surely scar her friends for life. Well, Willow and Xander, anyway. Anya would probably enjoy the show.

Buffy sort of wondered if her nympho nature!Buffy self would disappear when they reached the car, but instead she just wondered how comfortable Spike’s backseat was. She loaded up the canoes with more ferocity than was probably necessary.

When she slid into the front passenger seat of Spike’s Desoto, with the vampire (her vampire? Oh boy) crouched low against the light that slid into the car from the opening doors, she couldn’t help but lick her lips at his close presence.

Spike drew in a sharp breath, looking at her sideways. “Slayer…?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what you did to me,” she whispered lowly, glancing back at her friends, who were animatedly arguing in the backseat about Phoebe versus Joey as the best  _Friends_  character. “I feel like a fiend!”

He chuckled softly, tapping a finger on the steering wheel as he drove them out of the parking lot. “Could say the same on this end.”

She rolled her eyes. “You were already a fiend.”

“Yeah. Well.” Spike shrugged, pulling them onto the freeway. “It’s the sentiment.”

“Way wrong sentiment,” she told him, shaking her head.

Still, when Spike very silently snaked his hand across the bench seat to rest on her thigh, she didn’t lean away. In fact, she sort of stifled a moan. Hands like ice were not supposed to be moaning-Buffy making.  _Supposed to_  being the operative phrase. Oh god, she was never going to make it back to Sunnydale without jumping Spike’s bones. Damn. Damn. Damn.

She sucked in a deep breath and turned in the seat to face her friends. “Guys, I have to tell you something.” Spike’s body stiffened immediately, and the car gave a slight swerve. When she looked over at him, he was nearly glaring at the road, cheeks sucked nervously in. She touched his hand reassuringly and he hazarded a panicked look her way, very obviously confused by her smile. She turned back to the Scoobies. “There, um, wasn’t really a bear last night.”

Buffy expected confusion and disbelief and possibly outrage. What she was got was resignation, quickly accompanied by Anya’s beaming smile.

“Xander Harris, you owe me twenty dollars.”

Xander groaned and covered his eyes with his fingers. “C’mon Buffster, why’d you have to say it? I could have gone until the end of the world pretending it was a bear!”

Buffy gaped at them, mirroring Spike’s own flabbergasted expression. “Huh? You… you knew?”

Willow gave her a sort of wry half smile. “Um, Spike doesn’t really sound that much like a bear, Buffy. Also the, uh, moans kind of gave things away.”

Buffy's face flamed bright red. “Oh. Right.”

Spike smirked, glancing back at them. “Couldn’t keep her quiet. Sorry, Red.”

Xander peeked out from his hands. “No! No. No. No. This is not happening. Not  _another_ word.” He looked pleadingly at Buffy. “A bear.”

Anya just huffed. “No, it was Spike. Naked. Having sex with Buffy. And you owe me twenty dollars.”

Xander looked like he might cry.

Buffy hid a smile and turned back into her seat, looking shyly over at the nervous vampire. He looked at her uncertainly. “Thought you said I’d be dust if your little Slayerettes found out.”

“No, I said you’d be dust if  _you_  said anything. I decided to.” She paused. “Um, that’s okay, right?”

His hand snaked to her thigh again, very purposefully heading up her leg until it rested right over her clit. “Very.”

“Good. Because I expect a lot more, um, bear fighting from you. Like soon.”

Xander moaned and sank into his seat, hands over his eyes again. “This is not happening.”

Willow scrunched up her nose. “Are you guys dating now? I mean, kind of weird, but if you’re happy…”

“Oh.” Buffy froze. “I, um...”

Spike chuckled unevenly. “Hadn’t gotten that far.”

Anya shrugged. “Really? I imagine that you got about as far as you can physically get.”

“Anya!”

“Well, they did, Xander.”

Spike smirked, slowly circling Buffy's clit over her shorts. “Dunno about that, demon-girl. Plenty of things left to try.”

Buffy felt her entire body flush. A sign for a gas station in one mile flew by and she drew in a sharp breath. “Stop there. Right now.”

Spike swerved sharply into the exit ramp without a word. When they reached the gas station and leapt from the car to run into the bathroom (thank god for gas stations with outside bathroom entrances), Xander sighed in what sounded like complete resignation. “So,” she heard faintly, as Spike broke the bathroom door lock and very gentlemanly held the door open, “anyone want to take bets on how many times G-man cleans his glasses when he finds this out?”

As Spike slammed her against the bathroom tile wall, plucking off her clothes with insanely, thankfully short order, she briefly mused on the scenario. Three. Three seemed like a good number. She was totally going with three.

Then she went back to plundering Spike’s mouth.


End file.
